FEW things connected with football cheer me up these days, but I confess to a moment of genuine delight when I heard on Sunday evening that Paolo Di Canio was the new manager of Sunderland FC.

Di Canio had one absolutely brilliant season for Celtic in the mid-1990s, during which he scored 15 goals – many of them scintillating in their imagination and impudence. He was one of the most watchable footballers I've ever seen, always unpredictable, always inventive, always a little crazy. But there was method in his craziness.

Since then I've followed his career with interest. He has rarely been out of the news, both as a player and a manager. He is an exciting, combustible, high-profile personality. He was a wonderful footballer and he has the potential to be a wonderful manager. There is just one problem. He is a fascist.

His controversial arrival at Sunderland, after a couple of promising managerial seasons at Swindon Town, which he left honourably after a dispute with the owners, raises three simple questions: Where does the football end? Where do the politics begin? Can they be kept apart?

Sadly, I think the politics cannot be divorced from the football. Di Canio is such a forceful, spontaneous, volcanic personality that he will never be able to hide his sincerely-held political views away. He is proud to be a fascist, and there can be little doubt that fascism is basically a brutal and intolerant ideology. But it is also slippery and elusive. It means many different things to different people, and is hard to pin down.

Invented by Benito Mussolini (whom Di Canio greatly admires), it is an ideology that has frequently, if not invariably, been characterised by a hostility to democracy, by a cult of fawning adulation for "the leader", whoever he may be, by extreme violence, and – in Nazi Germany – by a heinous anti- Semitism. It has been associated with attacks on vulnerable minorities and with the systematic suppression of civil liberties, both of which are justifiably deplored. Less fairly, the word fascist has often been used to taint right-wing politicians who are perfectly respectable and responsible in their views.

Di Canio passionately insists that he is not a racist, and I believe him. Because it is not a specific or narrow ideology and because it is potentially enormously popular (despite its anti-democratic core) fascism can and has occasionally attracted people who could be described as decent and honourable. But overall the record of fascism is disgusting and there are dangers, to put it no more strongly, in having such an articulate and charismatic fascist as the public face of a prominent football club that plays in what is the most popular and most watched (thanks to television) league in all the world. If he wants it, Di Canio now has a platform for far more than football.

Barely was his appointment announced than David Miliband, the one-time Foreign Secretary, resigned as vice-chairman of Sunderland. I felt there was something rather showy in this gesture and anyway everybody knew that Mr Miliband was about to leave Britain for the US; he had already signalled his departure from British politics. I suspect that there will be quite a few more Sunderland fans and season ticket holders who will now eschew the Stadium of Light, which could alas now become the Stadium of Darkness.

In these difficult circumstances I reckon Di Canio has two options. He can refuse to talk about his political opinions, but I think that will go completely against the grain of his personality. Or he can discuss his ideology. If he does so in a sensible, responsible manner, he might just make fascism seem semi- respectable. But that's the problem – I don't really understand how fascism can ever be in any way respectable, no matter how charismatic and eloquent its proponent.

Di Canio's version of fascism is rooted in Rome, the city he grew up in – and a city that these days has a lot to put up with, including the Vatican City within it, a place of pilgrimage that has become sadly mired in corruption and scandal. Meanwhile Rome is at the centre of Italian politics which are at an appallingly low ebb. Italy has suffered political incompetence on a spectacular scale, and Rome is currently very fertile ground for a revival of fascism. Many Italian politicians are just sick jokes, and the cult of Mussolini is being revived. And Italy is not alone. Other Mediterranean countries, facing financial catastrophe and totally lacking credible political leadership, could be ripe for the nastiest kind of extremism, for a spell of bullying, anti- democratic authoritarianism.

Di Canio played for a time for Lazio, one of Rome's two great teams. Notoriously, Lazio's fans include the Ultras, a group of very righ-wing supporters, some of whom delight in thuggery and intimidation. Unfortunately, Di Canio gloried in his links with these fans, and would sometimes give them a fascist salute. That was reprehensible, but I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that Sunderland is not Rome.

And anyway I like to think that Di Canio has outgrown such rabble-rousing behaviour, although perhaps not. His football was often sublime, occasionally bizarre, and always outlandish. The same could be said for his personality.

At one time Sir Alex Ferguson, a great football manager who detests fascism in all its guises, tried to sign Di Canio. It would have been interesting to see how these two colossal personalities got on. After all, Sir Alex man-managed Eric Cantona, another very explosive footballer (and a very strong anti- fascist) with considerable finesse. But I suspect that the only personality who is ever going to man-manage Paolo is himself. I really hope he succeeds.